Marinara Sauce (photos)

One of you asked for this recipe so I put this together.

Marinara Sauce

This is a simple tomato sauce for pasta dishes. It can also be used as a base for making several other tomato based Italian Sauces. Classic recipes for Marinara can either include onion, or not. You can add wine if you like. I think Anchovies also add a lot to the sauce

For those who are interested, the sauce is gluten-free and vegan. There are many uses for the sauce, either as is, or modified as a part of other Italian sauces.



This may get lengthy because I will likely show two recipes

To make 2 cups of Marinara you will need:

1 can (28 Oz. tomatoes)
1/2 of a medium onion (left whole)
1 Tablespoon olive oil
3 cloves minced garlic
2 teaspoons fresh basil
2 teaspoons oregano (dried from our herb bed)
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons sugar
1/8 teaspoon black pepper.



Directions:

Add the ingredients to a sauce pan or sauté pan. My intent was to not have any onion in my finished sauce (only onion flavor) and I removed the half onion when the sauce was finished. If you like, you can chop the onions and keep them in the sauce. If you like, you can also add bell pepper to the sauce. If you like you can add wine to the sauce.



To cook the sauce, add the ingredients to a sauté pan and bring it to a simmer. As the sauce cooks, I broke up these tomatoes with a wooden spoon. You can crush them with your hands to break the tomatoes apart as they are added if you like. I like some pieces of tomato in my finished marinara so I am not too concerned with leaving some pieces as I break it up during cooking. If you like red wine in your Marinara, this is when you would add it.





I cooked this sauce at a low simmer for about an hour or hour and a half, until the liquid reduced to a thick sauce. You should taste during the reduction and season as desired with more salt, or sugar, which helps reduce the acid taste you sometimes get with canned tomatoes. You can adjust the level of sweetness with sugar to the taste you like.



This recipe will make about two cups of thick sauce that you can thin to the consistency you desire with water, or wine.



This is a nice bright sauce. You can use it as is over pasta, or add meat to make a meat sauce.


Next Option:

Here is another take on Marinara sauce, using chopped onions.

This sauce used two cans of tomatoes, garlic, chopped onion, basil, olive oil, salt, black pepper and oregano.



Tomatoes are crushed - You can do this your preferred way. The wife (MHNBPF) used her hands.



Used about two cups of chopped onion and maybe a Tablespoon of garlic, sautéed in olive oil until tender.



Then added the crushed tomatoes, 2 teaspoons of basil chiffonade and a maybe three Tablespoons of tomato paste, 2 teaspoons of salt and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper to the pan. You can make a basil/tomato marinara by adding more basil than I used. IMO, a little basil goes a long way.

Cooked at a low simmer for maybe two hours.



This one was used in a veal parmesan.





and then later in a Bolognese sauce with pasta



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